The luxuries of the American way of life are being indulged in here at the expense of the Baha'i Fund!

"The Beloved Guardian (Shoghi Effendi) remarked more than once in his talks to us at table, that Haifa, the Center of the Administration of the Baha‟i Faith, was the most difficult place in all the world for a Baha'i to live! I had not been there myself very long before I found this to be most true as each of the other American Baha'is there in our small community was finding it to be. One day several of us Americans were at lunch together, and one of the number, Leroy loas, summed up the situation saying, 'Haifa is the hell hole of this world' and we all present endorsed his observation summing up this situation for we all felt that it was Hell to be there in Haifa. . . But now during these past two years and, more without a Guardian in command, life in Haifa has changed greatly indeed. Now things here are quite the reverse of what they were under the First Guardian. Now we are living there like children out from under the restraints of school with its teachers enjoying the freedom of a vacation. In the days of the Beloved Guardian..., he insisted upon frugality, he kept the expenses of the community down to a minimum- he deplored the ease and comforts of life in America- these he considered to be actually detrimental to the spiritual way of life . . . The luxuries of the American way of life are being indulged in here at the expense of the Baha'i Fund! I dare not mention these in detail for fear of giving personal offence to friends . . . The very fact that we Baha'is living in Haifa now enjoy so much freedom from restraints, both in spending and in living that we will not have, I assure you, under the renewal of the Guardianship when this is re-established, it in itself, if anything, may be a block in your way leading to the re-establishment of the Guardianship ... In other words, the Hands of the Faith are now well and comfortably established in Haifa, but there is no telling what restrictions another Guardian might make in personnel here and in their way of life."

Sometime in 1959. Excerpt from a letter to the Hands of the Cause by Mason Remey